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Nezzar Tapes
Tape 01 Hello. If this tape has not reached the addressees on the envelope, then please see to it that it is. You stand nothing to gain by listening to its contents. My name is not yet any of your concern. I need assurance that you are who I hope you are before I reveal anything about myself. The mantle of Power Ranger rests upon you now. It is an unbearable and unfair burden, and the individual who bestowed this responsibility upon you now has a special place reserved in hell for them. Confusion, mass amounts of daily danger, and repercussions for all of your actions larger than you can imagine are now in your job description. To dessert your post is the most shameful thing you can do. Retirement is almost inevitable, but when you leave, nothing wonderful awaits you. Your tenure as a ranger will be the best and worst part of your life. Congratulations. I am in a unique position. I have collected knowledge about the Power Rangers, and have been present as important events have transpired. I can provide you with this information, if you prove worthy of it. The only thing more dangerous than an undereducated giant is a fool who knows too much. Listen closely, and you'll understand. Many Rangers, four houses. All colours common save one. The heroic candidate, if a student, would stay here, if the first choice was full. Take one step from the entryway for every letter in the creature's name. Its yellow comrade will show you where I am hiding. Tape 02 Congratulations on passing your first test. It's true that you still haven't proven yourself to be a Power Ranger yet, but I have to have a little faith, right? Let me tell you a story. More than ten thousand years ago, non-earthling humanoid Rita Repulsa attempted to seize control of Earth and take humanity captive. Imbued by the power of the Dark Spectre, she was christened a Witch and would not be stopped by anything that humankind had at its disposal. Another extra-terrestrial, a Sage named Zordon of Eltar, came to Earth's defense. Using five powerful artifacts called Power Coins, he imprisoned Rita in a capsule on the Rouge Planet Nemesis, not due back into Earth's vicinity for ten thousand years. However, before the final blow was struck, Rita casted a powerful spell that ripped Zordon from space-time, flinging his consciousness into a time warp and destroying his body. Alpha 5, an autonomation prince from Edenoi, constructed a temple in what would become the California desert to attempt to relocate his fallen commander. A place known as the Power Chamber was erected, and contact was established between the material world and the time warp that Zordon was forever trapped in. There, the two of them waited, stationed as the sole guardians of Earth by Zordon's king indefinitely. When Nemesis passed into Earth's orbit again in 1993, the Japanese space program seized the opportunity to land two men there. They unwittingly opened the capsule that had held Rita and her minions for so long: A genetically spliced Venusian Ogre, an Alchemist Vampire, a transmuter from a dead race, and Goldar, the most dangerous warrior in the Galaxy. The group of them immediately laid siege to the Earth, in search of the remains of Zordon. No longer able to use the Power Coins himself from his position, he recruited five earthlings to take on the mantle of the Power Rangers to defeat Rita and save the planet. Unfortunately, the Dark Spectre had other plans. For the next five years, the Dark Spectre assigned the destruction of Earth to different agents within his control. The Power Rangers fought back valiantly, and with some assistance from other worlds, were able to keep the forces of evil at bay. Meanwhile, Zordon was forced to leave his post as the mentor of the power rangers following the assassination of his king, and a civil war breaking out on his home world of Eltar. He sent forward plans to create a team of mechanical Turbo Rangers to enforce peace on his planet before departing his consciousness from Earth. He left the powerful Dimitria, a wise woman from the planet Inquiris, in charge of Earth's Ranger while he was away. However, he was not to return. In 1998, the Dark Spectre declared all-out war on Earth, descending upon it from all sides of the Galaxy. He had taken Zordon prisoner, collecting his consciousness from the time warp long thought impenetrable. To make matters worse, he created his own team of Power Rangers, accessing some kind of "anti-grid" to power them. They were the Psycho Rangers, and were fuelled directly by his vile power. The Psychos fought like demons and were seemingly unstoppable. Every minor success the Power Rangers had only caused them to grow in power, as the Dark Spectre poured more of himself into them. This, however, was ultimately his downfall. The Rangers outwitted the Psychos and sealed them away, but before the Dark Spectre could do anything about it, his own general turned on him and destroyed him. The Rangers made their final stand on Earth, and vanquished their foes for the last time after Zordon nobly sacrificed himself for their cause. Without the waring factions of Dark Spectre and Zordon, the clash of true evil and true good on Earth, the morphing grid could no longer be supported. Their could no longer be Power Rangers here. Which is why it's so interesting that, as you know, they returned. Now... listen closely, and you will understand... If the school had a Power Chamber, it would be tucked away here, And if steps were miles, Then the distance between the Rangers first hometown and second resurgence point, Would be the same as the distance between this Power Chamber and the third tape. Good luck. Tape 03 I was a different person when I was young. Trusting, impressionable, kindhearted. Nothing like what I've become. I was a fool then. Which is why, when the world was face annihilation by the Dark Spectre, I wasn't praying for salvation or holding my family or glued to the TV, awaiting whatever news there was to come. I had faith that the Power Rangers would rescue us in the 11th hour, so I was doing what I thought everyone else should be doing: research. I was a science-minded kid. I was very popular, as you might imagine. While everyone else coward away from the subject of aliens, or engaged with it only to spew xenophobic attitudes, I wanted to study them, to understand them. It didn't matter that they were hateful and violent, they were real flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials, and even more stunning, they looked like us. When the world held its breath, I was standing inside a hilltop observatory outside of Angel Grove. I had the place and all its equipment to myself. It was heaven. I took pictures and reads and scans of the alien ships, up close and in high detail. I got energy reads and radiation data on their laser weapons. I could hardly believe that everyone had their eyes on the burning skyline when the sky itself held so much information. It was there that I perceived something that I've never fully understood. It's only been recently that I've even developed a theory as to what it was that caused this phenomenon. In my younger days, I tried to approach scientists and journalists with my information, with my data, but no one was interested. A stigma had developed surrounding the event and the Power Rangers themselves, as if merely discussing it would cause the aliens to flood out of the woodwork again. Even worse were the people who listened to my findings but then disregarded them as the fantastical musings of a childish mind, or the misperceptions of a mind under stress. But that wasn't the case. I saw what I saw. And it may be the key to everything. Above the crafts, above the fire, I saw something fall from the heavens. It burned a brilliant white, casting light onto the spaceships from above as it came through the atmosphere. A chunk split off, sailing off into the distant sky, while the bulk of it erupted overheard, countless pieces raining down in different directions in the sky over head. They faded before even reaching the tips of the highest flying spaceships, but I always wondered what it was: Not a weapon, to be sure, and almost definitely not a natural phenomenon. The luckiest part is that my radioactive spectral equipment was trained on that part of the sky when it erupted, as I was trying to get a read on the saucer's exhaust ports. I picked up a unique read on the electromagnetic spectrometer that didn't match anything else in the sky that day, or as far as the rest of my research revealed, nothing in Heaven, Hell, or Earth. I didn't know it then, but that day would come to define the rest of my life. My theory of what I saw that day belongs only to me for now. The information is too sensitive for unproven civilians. Each tape you find brings you one step closer to earning my trust. Now, listen closely, and you will understand. Two teams have left Earth, but only one has returned Two of the six never belonged To their names they bore a number Find it's match and boldly go where you know you don't belong Behind the eyes of the man dressed the same You will find me hiding. Good luck. Tape 04 I bet you thought it was an accident that you had to work so hard to listen to those last tapes. It wasn't. It's important that you care enough to put the work into it. The silence gives you time to ponder my words. The World wouldn't know another Ranger until 2008. A decade passed by without them, and the world survived. A confused and power-hungry boy learned the secrets of the Morphing Grid by mistake, and became a madman vigilante in Willows, CA. His name still chills my blood, and the man he became was so unlike the boy I called a friend that I hesitate to even call him by it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. At 16 he was an industrious and adventurous lad. After an LA earth quake, he went diving in the lake to try to spot the shifted fault line. He found the Green Dragon Zord instead. Unearthed by the quake, the dormant Zord had waited there for nearly a decade without a pilot. He swam inside and activated it, surprised to find that it still had power. He piloted it out into the ocean and disappeared from view. Inside, he found coordinates to the Power Chamber, home of the original Power Rangers. The two of us went there, out in the California desert, and located its remains. He all but lived there that summer, tinkering and delving into matters better left untouched. Within the Power Chamber was a strange cannon-like device. Some of its notation was written in English, revealing that it was a joint-endeavour between Zordon of Eltar and an Earth human named William Cranston. Having been out of service for some time, it wasn't easy getting it working again, which was something he convinced me we should do. There... was an accident. We were both changed forever, but he promised that he would fix it. With this new tech, he assured me anything could be fixed. The next year, he became the Red Ranger of Willows. He was a monster in the suit, but we were too young and too stupid to know it. I worshipped him then. Now, listen closely, and you will understand. Buried in the past, buried in the earth, buried in the soil. The veins run under your feet like the streets of a city. The heart still beats, but is it steam or blood? In the direction that Greatness fled, you will find me hiding. Good luck. Tape 05 When he moved to university, he brought his life with him. He never cared for his parents or them for him, so his sister, Dawn, and I were all he had. The three of us moved together, with Dawn switching high schools, and him and me attending the University of Truth Hill. My mother paid the rent for an apartment near the school that the three of us could live in together. For a short time, things were good. There was a quiet, strange young man who lived next door to us. I never like him or his vacant, cold stare, but my friend to a shining to him. His name was Thaddeus Pallasalla. He was a student at the university as well, a computer science major apparently of some renown. I think it was his mind that my friend found so appealing, because I can't guess what else it could have been. Over time, my friend continued to work on the Power Ranger technology. Soon, he had developed a full five-ranger spectrum of colours, and he intended to use them. He said he wanted to give me one, but my condition prevented it. Instead, he kept one for himself, gave one to Dawn, two to new friends he had made at school name Cheng Murray and Amie Racer, and, despite my protests, one to Thaddeus. The five of them became the Colossi Rangers. The way he managed the team was strange. He kept Dawn and Thaddeus apart from Cheng and Amie, never telling them their names or letting them see each other's faces. To Cheng and Amie, Dawn and Thaddeus were only the Pink and Blue Colossi, and the Dawn and Thaddeus Amie and Cheng were only the Yellow and Black Colossi. He claimed that this ignorance was done to protect them, and only confided everyone's identities to me because he had a special trust for me. This was the first time I truly feared him, as the tone in his voice let me know that this trust came at a powerful cost. Shortly after the team was assembled, some unknown villain appeared on campus. In the form of monsters the likes of which defyed explaination, all gnashing teeth and rithing tentacles, the evil came in search of blood. He sank down deeper and deeper into the role of Power Ranger, and into his quest for power. He grew cold, first to me, and than even to his dear sister Dawn. She began spending nights at Thaddeus' place, and he didn't even seem to notice. More and more of his time was spent inside the Dragon Zord, which he had laid down in the pacific ocean to use as a base of operations for the rangers, teleporting back and forth freely via remote access to a terminal in the California Desert Power Chamber. Soon, the only times he would pay me any mind at all was when he needed me for his research. At first, he told me that he was trying to find the secret to my condition, to find out what had happened to me years earlier in the Power Chamber, but soon he dropped that facade. He told me that there was a key to something of monumental importance within my eyes, and that it would lead to the creation of a Power that would heal me and make me an equal member of the team. So I let him conduct his experiments. I still don't know if he ever intended to give me that power. Before his work was done, the Colossi drove the Dark Lord Organoth, the proclaimed leader of the monstrous hordes, to the point where a personal, physical confrontation was all he could muster. He appeared, enormous and ruinous, in the heart of downtown, Truth Hill. You already know how that battle went. Four city blocks were completely destroyed, and hundreds of lives were lost. Among them was Dawn, and, as my friend told the story, Thaddeus as well. The Rangers defeated Organoth, but the Zords were demolished, and the reputation of the Power Rangers went up in flame with them. The Colossi were over. When he returned home that day, he was a mad man. He screamed and cursed, bellowing for revenge. "Any way I can," he said again and again, directed at me. I was shaken to my core. I had no idea what he intended to do to me, but his tests were growing increasingly painful and dangerous. Now, I knew nothing would stop him from murdering me, or anyone else who got in his way. I had to disappear into the place that I was most comfortable: the dark. From there I waited for absolution. Four years later, I thought I found it. But it was another lie. Nothing wonderful will come from following these clues. Do not pursue them lightly. Some things a better left unknown. ... Listen closely. Set in stone are the things we lost in the fire. Names for faces lost forever in the dark. In the pattern xyz: Building X, Room ZY. Good luck. Tape 06 What I've told you would be more than enough for a clever person to piece together who I am. If you were a threat to me, I'd know it by now, because I'd be dead. It's time for me to be honest with you. My name is Amir Lazar, but you may call me Nezzar. The man I once called a friend, was Clayton Highland. Since 2007 I have been in hiding. When Clayton and I were in the Power Chamber, when we were barely more than children, trying to get the cannon-like apparatus to function again, it came to life all at once. It blasted a white beam of light at both of use, clipping Clayton in the side of his head but striking me directly in my eyes. It left my eyes horribly scarred, and my vision entirely impaired in natural light. However, I can see better than I ever could in the darkness, which is why it is now my home. Four years passed after the destruction of the Colossi Rangers. Evil stirred again, and soon students began going missing on the campus of Truth Hill University. A young graduate student, using the name David McFarline, took it upon himself to lead a new team of Rangers to uncover the truth behind the attacks on campus, and put an end to them. He claimed that he scavenged his knowledge and materials for this new Ranger team from the wreckage of the Colossi Rangers. It was a story that worked. For a little while. After they began to succeed in driving the threat back, it became apparent that they weren't the only force at play. Clayton returned, more powerful than ever, armed with White Ranger powers. I knew he must have discovered them using the information he gathered from my eyes. The map to the white light, ever illusive, was scribed within the scars in my eyes. I made myself known to these new Rangers, who would come to be known as the Great Power Rangers. I wanted to assist them in taking down Clayton, and once it was clear that I could trust them, I lent them my body so that their leader could deduce the secret of my eyes, and lock Clayton out of the Morphing Grid for good. I couldn't see a thing in the room as David looked over me, but there was something familiar about him. His smell. I should have said something then, but I thought myself being paranoid, and left without voicing my concern. That was a mistake. I kept an eye on them, so to speak, even when they had lost track of me. I knew then what I know now, but I didn't want to trust them with something that they wouldn't be able to handle. Outwardly, the team was a huge success. However, from within the team was beginning to crumble. Their enemies grew in number, and the team began to pull each other in different directions. They stole two morphers from Clayton, the rare and powerful Indigo and Orange Ranger powers, and added them to their ranks. The larger team did little to help them with cohesion. They discovered that Organoth had survived the battle with the Colossi Rangers, but only in spirit. His ghost was targeting members of the on-campus Pagan Society, under the guise of a powerful God. He was looking for a new host to begin anew, but the Great Rangers discovered him, and drove him from the body he was occupying. But doing so only freed him to invade another willing subject, which he had produced for himself in no short supply. Organoth wasn't their only foe, either. A new evil, calling herself Unerva, had taken up residence in the ruins of the city blocks left over from the battle against Organoth. She was once a normal human girl, only 12 years old, when something unknown happened to her, transforming her into a monster with the insatiable desire to corrupt. She turned her family into beasts, her father becoming a demon, and her mother becoming the White Drider, her most powerful minion. The odds were stacked against them. I made myself scarce, and watched from a distance. I didn't suspect they could survive. Not all of them did. Now, listen closely, and you will understand. People move on, but never forget, even as they leave tragedy behind them. To bestow the gift of knowledge is the calling of many. Two individuals share these two traits in common. Combine the names their share with their fathers. From south to north, count, subtracting giants from greatness. There you will find me hiding. Good luck. Tape 07 The Great Rangers were not without their successes. They rounded up the people who had been infected by the Dark Lord Organoth in a local hospital. His spirit was confined to the hospital after they ejected his spirit from his latest victim's body, but he would always be free to terrorize the residents there, people who were weak and susceptible. So they did the only thing they could have. They burned the hospital to the ground. The Rangers drove back Unerva and robbed her of her most important weapon, stealing her ability to corrupt life into terrible mockeries of itself. She was on the ropes, which gave the Rangers a chance to focus on Clayton. The lured Clayton into a trap and sprang upon him, beating him down until he unmorphed. Twice. The final blow was delivered by David himself, who unveiled himself to be Thaddeus Pallasalla. He had reworked his old Colossi morpher to bypass Clayton's block on it, and fought to defend his team. Finally in his human form, Clayton was vulnerable to be locked out of the grid himself. He teleported away. Clayton, divorced from his powers, seized control of the Pacific Base, the Green Dragon Zord. He tore it from the infrastructure that David built around it, causing the Zord hangers to come crashing down into the ocean. It's still a mystery to me how they managed not only to survive, but to partake in the ensuing battle. The Green Dragon Zord began laying waste to the city side. The Great Hunter Megazord dealt with him with minimal casualties. They captured Clayton, and submitted him to a mental institution outside of Truth Hill. Unerva finally snapped, releasing her White Drider Monster on to the city, multiplied to enormous size. Unerva appeared as well, her normal small size, but packing huge destructive potential. This is where details get sketchy for me. One of the Rangers, someone, took over Clayton's powers and Zord. Rangers Orange and Indigo piloted the White Nightmare Zord in Warrior mode, while someone using the White Ranger Powers squared off the Unerva toe-to-toe. The Great Hunter Megazord battled alongside the White Nightmare to fight off the White Drider. This battle took place in the ruins of from the battle with Organoth, so there was no lives lost whatsoever. The Great Hunter and White Nightmare were beaten down and torn to pieces, but the Rangers put an end to her. However, this left nothing left to destroy Unerva, who was rapidly flying towards the city. The White Ranger charged towards her, taking her out over the river. He overcharged his link to the Morphing Grid, until both of them exploded in a torrent of white light. I fell out of contact with them after that. They ex-communicated Thaddeus for his many dishonesties. Before I could talk to them again, they left the Earth for good. And now you're here. ...I'll contact you again soon. Tape 08 I apologize for my silence. Staying in one place for too long still doesn't sit with me. I had to take time to move, collect my thoughts, and to observe how you were performing. If this tape isn't already in the hands of the Power Rangers, please see to it that it makes it to them promptly. Time is of the essence, and I know you haven't let me down in the past. You've done nothing but impress me since you began your campaign against the entities that threaten your campus. I've been able to locate no shortage of bodies of your slain enemies, and, as far as I'm aware, you have not jeopardized your situation through any typical teenage tomfoolery. You're ahead of the last team. For these reasons, I think its time that I propose a meeting so that we may open up a dialogue between us. We have a lot to discuss. Now listen closely, and you will understand. The number of tapes I have sent you is alpha. The day will be September thrice alpha. It will be alpha hours after noon. You once found my words naked and knotted, suspended in the air. There you shall meet me at last in the flesh. Good luck, and may the power protect you.